


honest means of travel

by spqr



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt Eggsy, Kidnapping, Multi, Pining, gratuitous greece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 05:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12381861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spqr/pseuds/spqr
Summary: Roxy’s hand moves gently down the side of his face. He lets his eyes slip closed. “You told me you loved them,” she murmurs.Eggsy huffs, and sinks deeper into the pillows. “Yeah,” he says. “It don’t matter, though. I’m used to carin’ more about people than they do about me.”





	honest means of travel

_first._

 

Eggsy gets shot in Thessaloniki.

 

He then falls out a window, also in Thessaloniki.

 

All of this goes on in the middle of a 6.7 magnitude earthquake. It’s rather bad timing, on nature’s part, and it turns what was meant to be a straightforward surveillance op into the perfect storm of pain and failure.

 

Plus, he loses his glasses.

 

The mark--Mr. Anastos, the one who apparently made him the second he stepped foot in this godforsaken gorgeous country--finds him lying sideways in the street, and tries to put another bullet in Eggsy’s broken leg when he makes to get up. His suit stops it, but it still makes the broken bone jerk. _Ouch_.

 

Eggsy scrambles for his Rainmaker, but it’s not there. He must have left it in the building he just fell out of.

 

 _Bugger_. There are a thousand sirens, some close and some very far away, going off all around him, but none of them are sending out the SOS he so sorely needs. The dust is starting to clear, and he can see people staggering away from collapsed structures, but they’re just civilians, they’re not coming to help.

 

Eggsy holds his head high as the mark closes on him. He’d stand, only--his leg’s broken. If he’s going to die on the ground, he’s going to do it with his chin up. No pussy shit.

 

Mr. Anastos raises the gun.

 

For a brief moment, Eggsy is glad his glasses are gone. No one will have to watch this.

 

Not that there’s anyone at Kingsman who will be particularly affected by his death. Rox, maybe. Harry will be sad, but he’ll get on alright. Merlin, too. And his mum will look after J.B.

 

Oh, God. His _mum_. Shit. _Daisy._

 

But it’s been too long. He focuses back on the mark, vision swimming. Mr. Anastos has one hand on his ear, listening to something through his curly-wire earpiece. He rasps something in Greek, short and businesslike. Then he grabs the gun by the barrel, winds back, and cracks Eggsy over the head.

 

The world goes hot-white, and then dark.

 

_+_

 

_then._

 

There’s a twenty-four hour feed running in Kingsman HQ.

 

It’s not terribly interesting to watch, but there’s always someone monitoring it, Merlin or Roxy, for the most part. The view through Eggsy’s glasses. Rubble.

 

Thick, unmovable slabs of concrete. Darkness, mostly, enhanced by the glasses’ automatic night vision feature. A few thin, blinding slivers of daylight. And no sound.

 

The GPS tracker in the glasses gives Merlin the exact location. Harry’s on the ground in Greece three hours after the whole incident. He’s working alongside Greek search and rescue for the next thirty, trying to get through the collapsed building to Eggsy’s last known location.

 

 _Possibly_ , Merlin reminds his husband gently, _Eggsy’s current location_. But Harry ignores him.

 

At hour fifty-three, they make it through. Merlin watches on the monitor, Roxy at his shoulder, JB at his feet, as the last slab is lifted away, sunlight shines from the brilliant blue Mediterranean sky, and Harry clambers down a slope of rubble, suit dirty and hair askew.

 

He kneels, and picks up the glasses.

 

Merlin sees the dual image--Eggsy’s glasses, looking at Harry, and Harry’s, looking at _a pair of glasses_.Harry’s face flickers through a rapid series of minute expressions: relief, hope, dreadful realization.“Merlin,” he says. “This means--“

 

“He could be anywhere in the world,” Lancelot finishes, in Merlin’s ear. “Fucking-- _fuck._ ”

 

There’s no CCTV up in the entire city. Hasn’t been since the moment of the earthquake, which--conveniently, though not for Merlin--is the exact moment the mark got the drop on Eggsy.

 

It doesn’t matter. Merlin’s never lost an agent--not like, _misplaced_ lost.

 

He’s not about to start. Harry certainly wouldn’t let him, anyway.

 

_+_

 

_a bit later._

 

Eggsy swims awake through white light. It’s warm, and he can feel breeze on his skin.

 

Facts filter in slowly. His suit is gone. His whole body hurts. He can just barely move his fingers. His head feels fuzzy, like he can’t quite latch onto a thought before it’s gone. There’s a curtain next to his bed, billowing out near the bottom. Beyond it, he can hear birds, and something else.

 

He tries to sit up, without much luck. There’s a hand on his shoulder, a hazy silhouette over top of him, and a woman’s voice _tuts_ gently. “ _Shh_ , now,” she says. Her voice is like ice down Eggsy’s spine. “Don’t strain yourself, _agori_. There will be plenty of time for that, later.”

 

She laughs a bit, to herself. The sound jars Eggsy’s skull painfully.

 

He feels her fingers on his face, long fingernails digging into his cheekbone. He can’t keep his eyes open, but he feels her hot breath. A tinge of alcohol. Wine. _Good_ wine.

 

“You better not have brain damage,” she murmurs. “I need you to tell me about Kingsman.”

 

Eggsy’s muddled brain places her, as she leaves. He recognizes the voice, from audio recordings in Merlin’s briefings. The mark’s wife, who they assumed was just eye candy. Apparently, the brains of the operation.

 

He moves his leg experimentally, and swallows a scream. Not fucking good. _Ouch_.

 

The birds outside sing, and he can place the other sound, now--it’s the ocean.His tracker is gone, with his suit. He’s connected to a lot of wires and tubes. If this is an island he’s on, he’s pretty much screwed.

 

Fuck. He’s probably been declared dead, what with the bullet _just_ inside his jacket, his vital monitor crushed in the fall, his tracker gone. Kingsman’s probably already bloody moved on.

 

Merlin and Harry are probably at home in bed right now, together.

 

Whatever. He’ll figure it out.

 

_+_

 

_now._

 

Merlin hasn’t been home in near a week.

 

There’s no point going home now, not when three fourths of its usual inhabitants are gone. JB is comfortable at Eggsy’s mum’s, unaware anything is awry. Harry has not left Thessaloniki. And Eggsy is god knows where, having god knows what done to him, and--

 

Merlin drops his head in his hands. His wedding band is a metal spot of cool against his eyelid.

 

 _“Are you awake?”_ says Harry’s voice.

 

Merlin heaves a great sigh, picks himself up, and puts his glasses on. “Yeah, I’m here.”

 

He’s met by Harry’s careworn face, haggard and solemn. It’s a permanent look on him these days, if not a particularly good one. He’s taken over Eggsy’s Greek safehouse, against Merlin’s wishes, apparently perfectly willing to get taken himself if it means finding their lost agent.

 

“ _Do you think we loved him enough?”_ Harry asks, miserably. _“Do you think he... “_

 

Merlin thinks, immediately, of the first time they brought the lad into their marriage bed. The electric, honest joy on Harry’s face, and the inexorable warmth that spread in his own chest at the sight of both of them. Seeing Eggsy’s shields truly come down for the first time since he first met him, years ago.

 

But he thinks also of the facts: that Eggsy kept his own apartment, unlived in for months but still deemed a necessary expenditure, for some reason. That he sometimes looked a bit sad, at odd points very early in the morning. The way he’d frowned a bit, confused, when they’d given him a house key.

 

“He’s alive,” Merlin says, instead of answering Harry’s question. One of them has got to have conviction. If Harry’s starting to flag, well--Merlin will take up the slack.

 

Harry drags a hand over his face, and nods. _“You’re quite right.”_ A pause. _“Thank you, Merlin.”_

 

“And when we find him,” Merlin adds, “we’re never letting him out of our bloody sight again.”

 

“ _Quite right_.”

 

Neither of them says _I love you_. It doesn’t feel like they should.

 

_+_

 

_a day or so later._

 

Her first mistake was the _brain damaged_ comment.

 

When Eggsy can’t pretend to be asleep anymore--when they give him a shot of adrenaline to wake him right the fuck up--he just makes some gurgling sounds, and slops the water they try to give him down his chin.

 

It seems to work pretty well. The doctor--Israeli, but Eggsy speaks enough Hebrew to get by--prattles on about how brain injuries are very hard to quantify. The woman--Mrs. Anastos, wife or leash-holder of the most prolific arms dealer in Europe--throws a bit of a fit, and smashes a vase.

 

It’s terribly unladylike.

 

She comes over and slaps Eggsy across the face, and he gurgles some more. Drools into the pillow, for added effect. The doctor makes her leave, and then comes back, and does some checks. He talks to himself, so Eggsy gets a quick rundown of how _shit_ he’s going to feel when he goes off the morphine drip.

 

Leg broken in two places, reconstructive surgery recommended. Through-and-through on his left side, just under his heart. Missed everything vital by sheer bloody good luck.

 

Bad skull fracture, nearly killed him. They had to drill a hole in his skull. Eggsy wants to puke.

 

Healing nicely, though, the Israeli doctor murmurs, changing Eggsy’s bandages. When he leaves, Eggsy lets his eyes slide back into focus, and just stares at the airy white canopy overhead.

 

He needs a plan, but all he can think about is how much softer this mattress is than the one at home.

 

Harry’s thick green sweater, the one that still smells like the Cold War. The low rumble of Merlin’s brogue, like something warm and solid that Eggsy can sink into.

 

Tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

 

Fucking hell. He raises a hand to knuckle them away, sniffs once, hard, and stops. There’s no time to fall apart, here--not when he’s still got such a long road ahead of him.

 

He puts _home_ \--that _home_ he wishes he had--at the end of the road. Far off, not close enough to cry over.

 

Good. Now he’s just got to get there.

 

_+_

 

_months ago._

 

Eggsy and Roxy go out for a drink, somewhere the older Kingsmen will never find them.

 

It’s one of those clubs that have one-word names and serve drinks that look like they belong in a bloody chem lab more than a pub. They find a dark corner, far away from the dancefloor, and Roxy curls into his side, comfortably tipsy from the bottle of champagne they shared on the way here.

 

“Okay,” Roxy says, after the first round of green shots. “Spill.”

 

Eggsy does another shot--this one purple--for the hell of it. “Right, so,” he starts. “I’m bangin’ Harry. Also, before you say anything, I’m bangin’ Merlin.” A pause. “At the same time. Both of ‘em--“

 

“Yes--yeah, I get it,” Roxy interrupts, face scrunched. She knocks back two more shots, like she needs the liquid fortitude, and asks, “Since when?”

 

“Last week,” Eggsy answers. It’s all coming out easy, now the alcohol’s setting in. “I figured they want to keep it all on the down-low, you know--but I gotta talk to someone, Rox. I was going mad, fit to blab to _Percy_ the other day. Bloody _Percy_. And you know how bad that could’a been.”

 

“Yes, best you didn’t tell the village gossip,” Roxy murmurs. “Christ, Eggsy. This is a mess, isn’t it?”

 

Eggsy nods seriously. “A clusterfuck.”

 

“Oh, _ew_ ,” Roxy admonishes. Her eyes find his. “Is it...Is it serious? Or are you just...”

 

“Just fucking,” Eggsy answers. “I mean--they’re bloody married, you know?”

 

Roxy looks at him sadly in the pulsing pink light. Eggsy really wishes she would stop, because it’s making him sad. “And are you _alright_ with it being just fucking?”

 

“Yeah,” lies Eggsy, looking down. “It’s brill.”

 

Roxy cuffs him gently under the chin, to make him look back up at her. She raises one eyebrow. “You wouldn’t have brought me out tonight if it was _brill_ , Eggsy.”

 

God, Eggsy doesn’t deserve a best friend like Roxy Morton. She never lets him get away with _shit._ “Yeah,” he says. “It--I’m gone on the both of ‘em, innit.” He swallows thickly. “But I’m willin’ to take whatever I can get for as long as I can get it. Even if it’s just--just a temporary thing. I’ll take it.”

 

_+_

 

_right now._

 

Merlin calls Harry back to England.

 

He comes, conditional on the fact that Lancelot’s already installed herself in Thessaloniki. He doesn’t leave Kingsman headquarters, though, and Merlin doesn’t expect him to. He meets his husband in Arthur’s executive suites, and Harry as good as collapses into him, bone-tired.

 

Merlin’s not much better off himself, so he sees to it that they make it into bed.

 

They lose their glasses, and their shirts, but they don’t make it much further than that. They meet in the middle, hands and mouths familiar. But even with Harry right here, there’s still an empty space in the bed that Merlin feels like a cold spot in his stomach, a gaping hole where something vital should be.

 

Even though they sorely need sleep, they lie awake into the wee hours of the morning. Merlin’s fingers card through Harry’s unkempt hair. Harry’s lips skim over his chin. It’s a kind of peace, if barely.

 

“Is this how it felt?” Harry asks, suddenly. “After Kentucky. Is this how it felt, for you?”

 

Merlin remembers those long, too-bright days. He’d gone home then, because he’d had no reason to believe he’d ever have anything but an empty house to go back to. Eggsy had followed him, though, unexpectedly, stuffed himself forcefully into Merlin’s life in the absence of the man they both loved.

 

Both unable to get a wink of sleep, they’d talked for hours. About Harry, about Kingsman, about dumb game shows on the telly. And Merlin loved the lad, slowly but surely. Still, without Harry, it felt like--

 

This. Like this. “Yes,” he replies, after a long minute of quiet.

 

There are a lot of things that they don’t have to put to words.

 

The fear, that they might never have him again. That he might never stumble through their kitchen in the morning, pajamas rumpled while they’re both sat down to breakfast in full suits, crashing about in the cupboards for tea, sunlit and soft. That they’ll never have another chance to drag him back to bed.

 

The pain, of not knowing if he’s safe.

 

Or rather, of knowing he’s _not_ , and being unable to do anything about it.

 

_+_

 

_sometime in limbo._

 

It’s a waiting game.

 

Eggsy’s never had access to a deep well of patience, but he taps into one now. He lays in bed for what must be weeks, while the doctor shuffles in and out, pronouncing him brain-damaged each time.

 

 _Give it time_ , the Israeli tells Mrs. Anastos. Eggsy takes the advice to heart.

 

He knows he’s only going to get one shot at an escape, especially with the state his leg’s in. They haven’t sent him to surgery--his captors don’t care if he ever walks properly again or not--and there’s only so much information he can gain from the bed.

 

Phones are out. He’d have to take out a guard to get to one, and then they’d know he got word out, and move him.

 

He’s nowhere near in fighting shape, anyway. No, he’s going to have to get out, find a vehicle, and get as far away as he can. Then, when he can’t get any further on his own, he’ll call Kingsman.

 

There are two armed guards outside the door to the bedroom. But there’s a loophole--outside on the patio, past the billowing curtains by his bed, the guard is a smoker. Eggsy can smell it. The catch is, he can smell it not through the open doors, but through the window behind him.

 

That means, when the guard moves to smoke, he can slip out.

 

If he does it at night, hopefully no one will notice he’s missing until morning. The doctor doesn’t keep a set-in-stone schedule though, not from what Eggsy can tell, so he’ll need luck on his side.

 

The plan is not great, as plans go. He’s pretty much flying blind.

 

He’ll probably die.

 

Whatever. It’s not as if he’s going to hang around here and flip on Kingsman. And if he wants even the slightest chance of seeing Harry and Merlin again, he’s going to have to take the chance.

 

At this point, they certainly aren’t coming for him.

 

_+_

 

_next._

 

It’s really a miracle they never put his leg in a cast.

 

The stiff brace is much more maneuverable than a few feet of thick plaster would’ve been. Sure, the bloody leg hurts like nothing Eggsy’s ever felt in his entire fucking life, but he can move, even if it’s just to drag the useless limb through rocky dirt.

 

He pinched the morphine drip under the sheets a few hours ago, and feigned sleep until nightfall. When he smelled the guard move for a smoke, he made his move.

 

Silence is a tricky bitch. Eggsy wants to scream, and he has to hold some of the weight off his leg as he drags it, so it doesn’t make noise on the ground. He makes his way away from the villa, crouched low to the ground, up around a hill point, out of view of the porch lights.

 

The ocean, black and pulsing, stretches all around him. He’s on a fucking island.

 

There’s no going back now. Eggsy turns slowly, fighting off the encroaching feeling of desperation, and looks for his way out. A few things stand out--city lights, in the distance. And a dock, a hundred meters away.

 

If he can get to those lights by morning, he’ll be clear. He starts limping.

 

The motorboats will be too loud, alert the whole fucking villa that he’s making his escape. He doesn’t like his chances in an armed boat race, so he settles into a canoe, grabs two paddles from the dock, and pushes off.

 

It’s almost peaceful, once he’s out to sea.

 

The climate is temperate, so he’s only slightly chilled. He has to fight to keep his eyes open, through the pain and the gentle motion of the ocean and the exhaustion--but he does, and he keeps them fixed on those city lights in the distance. He’s got no idea what kind of distance he has to go.

 

But go it he does.

 

He passes a fishing boat at dawn. The captain waves--Eggsy waves in return. A smile splits over his face, and it feels like coming back alive after a very long time.

 

The docks, when he reaches them, are familiar. Thessaloniki. He almost laughs aloud, because they only took him _miles._ Just a few _miles,_ this whole time.

 

He staggers ashore with an oar under his arm like a crutch, and finds a phone.

 

_+_

 

_a while ago._

 

Harry puts his fist through a computer screen, rips a shelf off the wall, and crumples to the floor.

 

It is, he’s aware in some distant corner of his mind, conduct _wildly_ unbecoming of Arthur. It is also a bloody miracle he made it all the way back to his office.

 

His hands are shaking, so he holds his head tight to steady them. He has twenty minutes until the jet is fueled and ready to take him to Greece. It’s not near enough time, and it’s far too long.

 

 _Eggsy_. This morning, when the boy had tried to draw him in for a kiss, Harry told him to go brush his teeth. What if that was--what if last night was their last night, he and Merlin sinking into bed only once they’d got back from their anniversary dinner, Eggsy curled far off to one side--

 

His ears are still ringing, with gunshots and collapsing buildings and his own voice, saying _Galahad_ , and Merlin’s saying _look at you, boyo_ , and Eggsy’s, saying _Harry._

 

 _Harry,_ a child saying it. _Harry,_ fond.  _Harry,_  anguished, you’re _alive--_ Pressed against skin, _Harry, I’m yours. Harry, Harry, Harry, Merlin, I’m yours, please, I need you, please just fucking-- Harry._

 

Harry tries to breathe, but all he can hear is Eggsy’s gentle snore next to him in bed, all he can see is the loose slope of his shoulders and Merlin’s arm around the boy’s waist, wedding band against Eggsy’s skin. He puts his head between his knees, because his hands aren’t steady enough anymore.

 

There’s blood, from something. His knuckles, probably. The computer is still fizzing on his desk.

 

Merlin finds him like that.

 

He pulls his husband into a rough hug, away from the scattered ruins of his bookshelf. Harry swallows it down--the part of himself that has never wanted anything so much as he wants to go back to this morning, so he can kiss Eggsy properly and press him back into their bed and tell him _I love you._ We _love you._

 

Merlin lets out a big, deep breath.

 

“I watched you get shot in the head,” Merlin says, after a long moment. Their grip is less urgent, now--Harry moves away, just a bit, still sat between Merlin’s legs. “And you’re here.”

 

Harry just stares. Merlin presses a kiss to his mouth, short and bracing. “Wheels up in five.”

 

Harry nods, with purpose. “I’ll be ready.”

 

_+_

 

_currently._

 

The hostage bed was pretty plush, but Eggsy prefers the one on Kingsman’s jet.

 

Roxy’s sitting up next to him, giving a cut-and-dry mission report to the boys back home through her glasses. Eggsy’s having a hard time clinging to consciousness, and also a hard time figuring out why he should. He’s starting to drift off when Rox takes off her glasses and sets them aside.

 

She sinks a hand in his hair, and he turns his face to look at her. She smiles.

 

“So, why was you still in Greece?” Eggsy asks. “Still goin’ after the Anastoses?”

 

Roxy frowns. “I was on recon,” she says slowly. “Looking for any signs as to where you might have got off to. We’ve had someone stationed in the city twenty-four seven since you went missing.”

 

Eggsy _hmms_. “Thought you would’a stopped looking.”

 

Roxy laughs lightly. “No, Eggsy. I reckon Kingsman would’ve had a permanent station in Thessaloniki seventy years from now, if you hadn’t turned up.”

 

They lapse into silence for a bit, Roxy’s hand still a soothing weight on his head, careful of his bandages. He wishes it were someone else here with him--two someones--but this is nice. She’s a good mate. She moves around a bit, and reaches for something on the bedside table, but her hand never leaves him.

 

“Arthur and Merlin are meeting us on the tarmac,” she says, casually.

 

Eggsy cracks one eye. “Why’re they doin’ _that_?”

 

Rox pinches his ear. “Why do you _think_ , you wanker?”

 

Eggsy shrugs as well as he can while laying sideways, with his one shoulder still badly non-operational from his daring rowboat escape. It’s not much of a shrug. “I dunno,” he muses. “I figured they’d’ve got on fine. Moved on by now.”

 

Roxy’s hand moves gently down the side of his face. He lets his eyes slip closed. “But you told me you loved them,” she murmurs.

 

Eggsy huffs, and sinks deeper into the pillows. “Yeah,” he says. “It don’t matter, though. I’m used to carin’ more about people than they do about me.”

 

_+_

 

_some hours later._

 

Harry holds his hand tightly as they watch the plane touch down.

 

Taxiing seems to take ages, but then the staircase is folding out, and Lancelot is helping Eggsy hobble down towards them. Harry rushes forward. Merlin’s only a few steps behind him, and then Eggsy has an arm around each of them and it’s a complete mess but he’s _here_. Merlin can touch him.

 

Harry presses a kiss to the lad’s forehead, and a smile breaks out across Eggsy’s face.

 

Merlin finds that he’s smiling, too, when he ducks his head into Eggsy’s shoulder. “You lot missed me, did you?” Eggsy laughs, and Merlin picks him up, Eggsy’s arms tight around him, and spins, because what else can he do? He sets him down carefully, and then Harry’s on him, holding the boy’s face in his hands.

 

“Alright,” Lancelot steps in. “Galahad needs medical attention _yesterday.”_

 

Harry has the good graces to look businesslike for barely half a second before he’s smiling at Eggsy again. His hands never leave him. “Of course,” he says, in his Arthur voice. “Thank you, Lancelot.”

 

Merlin’s about to follow the two of them to the taxi, when Lancelot stops him with a hand on his arm. He turns back to her. She holds something out to him--a small black dot. A bug.

 

“Don’t let Eggsy know,” she says. “But I think you and Arthur are going to want to hear what’s on this.”

 

Merlin takes it with a nod, and goes to his family.

 

Much later, when Eggsy’s bundled safely into a medical bed back at Kingsman, scheduled for reconstructive surgery in the morning, back on a steady morphine drip, Merlin plugs the bug into his tablet. He steps into the hall, and presses play on a twenty-second audio clip.

 

After it finishes, he just stares at the screen for a long, long minute.

 

Then he retrieves Harry from Eggsy’s bedside, and plays it again.

 

 _“Yeah,”_ says Eggsy, electronic voice small in the big, deserted hall. _“It don’t matter, though. I’m used to carin’ more about people than they do about me.”_

 

When Merlin looks up, Harry’s expression is tight and unhappy. “He thinks...”

 

“He thinks we’re poised to toss him out on his arse,” Merlin finishes. “The ruddy idiot.”

 

_+_

 

_finally._

 

Eggsy swims awake through orange light.

 

Everything hurts much less than it did yesterday.

 

The facts filter in, one at a time. His leg is in a cast. There’s a steady beeping next to his right ear. The sound of the ocean is gone but the sounds of birds are not. Something’s snoring at his bedside, loudly. JB. Someone’s holding his hand, a man. There’s a weight at his other side, someone leaning on the bed.

 

He could slip back asleep. _God,_ he’s exhausted. He feels hollowed out, scraped raw.

 

But he’s been laying in bed for the past month, so instead he opens his eyes.

 

Harry’s watching him already, Eggsy’s hand clasped in his. He smiles softly when he sees Eggsy’s awake, and his eyes are underlined with thick circles, like _he’s_ the one who’s just made a dashing dinghy escape. Eggsy remembers the pressure of Harry’s arms around him on the tarmac last night, and wants.

 

“Hey there, Harry,” he rasps.

 

Harry presses his lips to Eggsy’s knuckles. “Hello, my dear boy.”

 

Merlin stirs at his other side, and picks his head up. There’s a crease in his face from the blankets, and Eggsy runs his thumb over it briefly, grinning. “Kipped out, Merlin?”

 

Merlin _hmms,_ and leans down to kiss him, soft and slow. Eggsy feels his free hand start to tremble, so he grabs a great handful of the blankets to steady it. When Merlin pulls back, he reaches for Harry’s hand, and Eggsy swallows. Right then.

 

“You two can go home, if you like,” Eggsy says. “I didn’ expect you to stay, or nothing.”

 

Merlin’s jaw tightens, and Harry looks physically pained. He draws Eggsy’s hand to his mouth again, and uncurls his fingers, kisses Eggsy’s palm. “Love,” he says, eyes earnest behind his glasses, “Merlin and I do not intend to go home without you. Ever again.”

 

_+_

 

_much later._

 

Eggsy’s bullet wound has healed to a faint silver starburst.

 

His leg’s still not much use in a fight, but he can at least hobble about on it.

 

It’s the first time he’s been back at their house--back _home--_ since shipping off for Thessaloniki. There are boxes from his apartment in the spare room upstairs, and they've made room in their closet for his suits.

 

He turns his eyes on his own reflection. His skin looks pale, sun-starved in the master bathroom mirror.

 

Those long, thin nights on the island don’t seem as far away as they should. They feel like they’re right at the core of him--the bare surety of loneliness, the ache of laying awake all night fighting the pull of the morphine drip, knowing that falling asleep would mean seeing them as if they were right with him, painfully real.

 

He can hear their voices outside the door, and _still_.

 

His eyes feel wet, and he swipes at them, angrily. He grabs the end of the counter, white-knuckled, and wills it all back down, everything he’s kept packed down since the island, all his fear and hopelessness and the longing that he was so, _so_ sure he was going to live with forever.

 

There’s a knock on the door. “Eggsy,” Harry calls. “Are you alright?”

 

“Fine,” Eggsy replies, but it must not sound convincing.

 

He forgot to lock the door. The handle turns, and Harry eases inside, brow creased in concern. He looks-- _god_ , he looks like everything Eggsy’s never let himself dream of having, warm and familiar in his dressing robe. “You don’t _look_ fine, my dear boy,” he accuses, softly.

 

Eggsy nods, unwilling to speak while he's choked up, and turns back to the mirror.

 

Harry presses a kiss to his bare shoulder. Then Merlin is there too, murmuring  _come to bed, lad_ into the back of his neck, and he lets them draw him away, lets them turn out the lights, feels them in the dark.

 

And he breathes out.


End file.
